to the fat, jolly gentleman, and his
eyes glistened too, and I heard him say 'How singular!' and then the two
talked together in a speech I didn't understand--I rather thought it was
French, at any rate it wasn't cant; and presently the first asked me what
I would take for the book. Now I am not altogether a fool nor am I
blind, and I had narrowly marked all that passed, and it came into my
head that now was the time for making a man of myself, at any rate I
could lose nothing by a little confidence; so I looked the man boldly in
the face, and said: 'I will have five guineas for that book, there a'n't
such another in the whole world'. 'Nonsense,' said the first man, 'there
are plenty of them, there have been nearly fifty editions to my
knowledge; I will give you five shillings.' 'No,' said I, 'I'll not take
it, for I don't like to be cheated, so give me my book again'; and I
attempted to take it away from the fat gentleman's hand. 'Stop,' said
the younger man, 'are you sure that you won't take less?' 'Not a
farthing,' said I; which was not altogether true, but I said so. 'Well,'
said the fat gentleman, 'I will give you what you ask;' and sure enough
he presently gave me the money; so I made a bow, and was leaving the
shop, when it came into my head that there was something odd in all this,
and, as I had got the money in my pocket, I turned back, and, making
another bow, said: 'May I be so bold as to ask why you gave me all this
money for that 'ere dirty book? When I came into the shop, I should have
been glad to get a shilling for it; but I saw you wanted it, and asked
five guineas.' Then they looked at one another, and smiled, and shrugged
up their shoulders. Then the first man, looking at me, said: 'Friend,
you have been a little too sharp for us; however, we can afford to
forgive you, as my friend here has long been in quest of this particular
book; there are plenty of editions, as I told you, and a common copy is
not worth five shillings; but this is a first edition, and a copy of the
first edition is worth its weight in gold'."

"So, after all, they outwitted you," I observed.

"Clearly," said the man; "I might have got double the price, had I known
the value; but I don't care, much good may it do them, it has done me
plenty. By means of it I have got into an honest, respectable trade, in
which there's little danger and plenty of profit, and got out of one
which would have got me lagged sooner or later."